Buckeye Bits

NCAA justice misses the culprits

The NCAA slapped Ohio State with a 2012 bowl ban and scholarship losses over three years. The problem is that when these punishments take effect, the guilty parties will be long gone. Jim Tressel will be playing golf and collecting a fat retirement check, Terrelle Pryor will be getting paid to hold a clipboard in the NFL, and the other tattoo posterboys will be off getting paid to play football, just legit this time. The folks serving the penalties will have had nothing to do with the scandal. Why not fine Tressel $1 million and fine Pryor whatever amount he made in the NFL this season? If they don't pay, use that army of lawyers at OSU and sue them. I think the courts would rule favorably, given the evidence.

Meyer staff not likely to include any scratch golfers

Urban Meyer once said he would not hire any coach just because he was a friend, or one who had a low golf handicap, which meant the guy was playing too much golf. He was only kidding a little. Recently, when Meyer set out to start putting together his coaching staff at Ohio State, he seemed to follow those same principles. He has hired a couple guys he barely knows, and a couple more we can assume are lousy golfers. His emphasis from the start was to get the "best coach" in America at every position, if possible. We won't see the results until next fall, but as the staff comes together, we'll develop a pretty good picture of where the Ohio State program is likely headed.

Broken news had millions of errors in Meyer numbers

One of the more interesting elements to come out of the Ohio State news conference on Monday introducing Urban Meyer as the next head coach of the Buckeyes was the revelation that so many of those "breaking news" stories of the past couple weeks were actually quite broken.

In a reckless race to be first and therefore momentarily relevant, so many ran a huge number up the flag pole and told everyone to stand at attention and salute. Countless experts "confirmed" Meyer had a seven-year deal for $40 million "locked up." They puffed out their chests and strutted like prairie chickens. Only they missed it by a year and around $10 million. If I had been that far off on my fourth grade math homework, Sister Mary Clavera would have had me doing flash cards during recess ... for a semester.

A gaggle on Google had Meyer signed, sealed, and delivered at Ohio State a week before anyone actually put their John Hancock on any piece of paper. It was a "done deal" these boxer-shorts-in-the-basement authorities insisted, demonstrating the same level of restraint as a bunch of drunks at a bachelor party. Nothing was on paper at that point, nothing signed -- try buying a house with that kind of "done deal."

Monday, there finally was a deal and Meyer signed a contract. Using the frenzied ex post facto news model of the past month we can now safely proclaim this: "Meyer beats Miami". And when he does next September, we had it first.